By ZACK YUSOF
Japanese horror flicks are tops and apart from inspiring Western remakes, they have also spurred other Asian countries to produce their own spine-chilling movies.
You’ve got to hand it to the Japanese: on top of everything else that they are able do well, they also really do know how to make a great scary movie.
So much so that Hollywood has felt compelled to issue remake after remake of its more successful films like Ringu (The Ring), Ju-On (renamed The Grudge for the Western market) and Dark Water for several years now.
This spring, yet another American remake will hit the cinemas in the guise of One Missed Call, a reworking of Takashi Miike’s 2004 superior chill fest.
But as any hardcore horror aficionado will tell you, the Japanese originals are way, way superior to their Western makeovers.
The success of Japanese horror flicks like The Ring and Ju-On have also inspired filmmakers from other Asian countries such as China, Thailand and Korea to try their hand at coming out with horror movies of their own with relative success.
As ever, Hollywood have been quick to try and milk any gems coming out of the Asian horror scene with remakes of The Pang Brothers’ Chinese-language horror The Eye and the excellent Thai chiller Shutter already pencilled in for release.
But as good as some of the horror movies coming out of this region are, Japanese horror remains the best of what the Asian horror scene has to offer, in this writer’s opinion.
In fact, ever since I watched Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi’s 1964 classic Kwaidan on DVD about six years ago, I have been utterly hooked on Japanese horror movies.
With its innovative use of scary sound effects and atmospheric music, Kwaidan, which featured four traditional Japanese stories of a supernatural nature told back-to-back, had such a haunting effect. Certainly, it’s the kind of movie that refuses to let go once it has you in its grasp.
Although the pace of the movie was slow and somewhat ponderous ‘ especially by contemporary horror standards ‘ it didn’t really matter as the stories it told were so entertaining and the manner in which they were told so tasteful and elegant that it really did make for compulsive viewing.
Essentially, what really seduced me about Kwaidan as well the many other excellent horror movies to come from Japan was the way the directors ‘ going back to Kobayashi ‘ never allowed a lack of a big budget get in the way of a good solid premise. They also seemed to be really passionate about the whole subject of horror, much more so than their Western counterpart, and that passion really came through in the work.
A film like Kwaidan worked a treat artistically on the most stripped down level and with very little gore and zero lavish special effects and should definitely serve as a pointer to budding horror filmmakers everywhere as to how to go about things without having to break the bank.
Despite being relatively inexpensive to produce, Japanese horror films like The Ring and Ju-On still manage to be ingenious (just how scary and amazing was it the first time you saw that girl climb out the television in The Ring’), full of suspense and frigh on a consistent basis as well as maintaining an admirable artistic sensibility.
On a limited budget, Japanese horror movies always seem to nail the right feel and vibe. Be it the dark, dank Tokyo apartment block in Dark Water or the ominous little suburban terraced house in Ju-On, the setting and surroundings are always spot-on for the horror about to ensue.
Another thing that appeals about Japanese horror is the way it tends to concentrate on the motives of various spirits or ghosts more than anything else. Hideo Nakata, the director of The Ring has noted that Western horror movies generally feature demons, monsters or chainsaw-wielding psychos while Japanese horror tends to focus on vengeful or unhappy ghosts who cannot sever their connection with the terrestrial world until their deaths are avenged.
As Asians, we are regularly being told that ghosts do exist, so seeing these beliefs being upheld and taken seriously on celluloid is a hugely satisfying, and wholly frightening experience.
[by francesca]
Related posts:
Leave a Response